BioSample

The takahe (Porphyrio hochstetteri) is a flightless bird indigenous to New Zealand, and the largest living member of the rail family. Due to over hunting, they were once thought extinct by the late1890s, until 50 years later a small isolated population was found. The is now an active breeding program for their conservation. This juvenile female is from trio of samples (parents) breed and collected to create a high-quality reference genome for both maternal and paternal haplotypes. The juvenile was bred in captivity. Sample collection was conducted by Glen Greaves, in a projected coordinated and supported by Lara Urban, Andrew Digby, Daryl Eason, Deidre Vercoe, and Takahe Recovery Programme. Blood from the female was used to create high-quality reference genome assemblies of each haplotype. Genome sequencing and assembly was coordinated by Erich D. Jarvis and Olivier Fedrigo at the Rockefeller University Vertebrate Genome Lab, and as part of the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) and for conservation research.